In Love and War

Chapter 9 - The Storm

Arya discovered that she despised the rocking of a boat with a burning passion.

The first week she spent with her head in a bucket. The next she was able to keep down the fish and drink that Thema miraculously procured, and the week after that she found that she could walk around the ship without leaning on the rails.

Though she hated the constant rocking that came with being on the ocean, Arya found found that she liked the silence and the strength of the sea. It was merciless and powerful, battering them at night until she could feel the ship shudder beneath her, and sending up stinging spray that bit into her cheeks again and again. She let her hair down sometimes, and felt the wind ease salty fingers through her locks. It was soothing, that feeling of being small and weak, watching gray sea writhe below her.

And Thema wasn't lying when she'd said that Arya would be stronger by the end of the trip. She learned how to tie knots that wouldn't slip, and how to scrub decks until they shone, and climb ropes with ease.

Thema called her snake Hasani. Arya could have sworn that she saw almost human-like intelligence in his eyes. One time she'd found him curled around a beam above where she slept, utterly still and watching, as she woke up. As she watched, he uncurled himself and slithered into the darkness. Arya never went to bed after that without checking around for a thin dark body nearby.

Thema herself was a mystery. She swaggered around the boat with arrogance and a glint of a wild grin in her dark eyes, as though she knew this world was full of shit and she was laughing at everyone who hadn't figured it out. Yet the few times when Arya woke early enough, she'd find Thema, still as the waning night around them, clinging to the tallest mast on the boat, staring out at the misty sea with something like sadness on her face, and a hint of calculating brilliance. And then the mask would be back on again when she looked down at Arya.

It was a few weeks into their journey when the storm hit. Thema had already known, somehow, and prepared as best she could. But the boat was small and the storm was large, and even Arya knew what that meant.

The storm hit just as night was falling. The waves grew choppy and large, and the small boat dipped and rose over the crests of the foaming waves. A wind buffeted the side of the boat, and Arya's cheeks stung with cold as she squinted over the sea. She couldn't see much anymore; a thick mist had settled over the sea, blocking any visibility--anything other than the endless grey. Arya rubbed at the small bulge underneath her shirt. The bead Nightshade had given her was strung across a chain around her neck. It was hot, somehow--so hot it almost burned her skin. She grabbed it out from her shirt and started.

The bead wasn't black, like it had been when Nightshade had given it to her. It was grey now, but flickering, like tiny shadows raced around inside of it, flitting past some distant light.

A stray wave slammed into the boat, tossing it like a child's toy, and Arya stumbled, slamming a hip into the railing. She had to get away from the edge. Thema had told her to stay away from the railing; when storms got big enough they rocked ships enough to suck people into the sea, never to be seen again, and their small boat didn't have enough weight in the hull to keep it upright.

Arya turned to face a wall of grey. Mist filled the air, so thick she felt like she was breathing water, or perhaps that was the spray from the sea. Water slicked the surface of the boat, and she caught the gleam of sickly light against the dark wood. Slippery. Dangerous.

Staggering, Arya managed a few steps before the boat dipped and slammed into another wave, sending her careening forward. Where was it, where was the--there. Her fingers brushed wood, and she scrabbled to cling to the mast just as another wind screamed past her ears. She realised that she couldn't feel her fingers.